An assisted-living and skilled-nursing facility in Bellevue will soon be under new management after being bought by an Eagle, Idaho,-based company.

Cascadia Healthcare, which owns several nursing care facilities in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, will take over Bell Mountain Village and Care Center at the beginning of February. The facility had been owned by Safe Haven, a Pocatello-based company that filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

The company will change the name of the Bellevue facility to The Cove of Cascadia in the coming months, according Steve LaForte, Cascadia Healthcare’s director of strategic operations. LaForte said the name is an allusion to the facility’s roundabout nature.

In an interview with the Mountain Express this week, LaForte said the company had initially been informed that the property was for sale before Safe Haven had filed for bankruptcy, but at that point there was “too much leverage” on the facility for Cascadia owners to consider making an offer. Last summer, Cascadia owners were once again reminded of the Bellevue facility, and began attending the bankruptcy hearings playing out in Boise to see if the circumstances had changed to warrant a purchase.

The sale agreement panned out, and on Dec. 3, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jim Pappas approved the sale to Cascadia Healthcare. Pending final licensing approval from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Cascadia will take over operations at the facility on Feb. 1, LaForte said.

Founded only four years ago, Cascadia Healthcare is now the largest post-acute care facility in the state, with 13 facilities in Idaho and one each in Washington, Montana and Oregon. With a mantra of “be a force of good,” the company

has continued to expand from Coeur d’Alene to Nampa and now into the Wood River Valley.

“Cascadia is community-focused,” LaForte said, and as

such is looking forward to working with other organizations in Blaine County, including St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center.

“We’re grateful that we have great community partners,” he said.

As of last week, the facility had 30 skilled nursing patients and 14 assisted living residents, nearly at capacity. LaForte said the company will try to retain all the current employees and will look to the local community if additional employees need to be hired.

Safe Haven President and CEO Scott Burpee filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 10, 2018, after the company had trouble collecting an insurance claim for a fire at its facility in Pocatello in November 2017. During the bankruptcy proceedings, Safe Haven liquidated most of its assets, including two other facilities—one in Boise and a second in Wendell. A Boise facility, one of two independent psychiatric hospitals in Idaho, was sold to a behavioral health care provider based in Ontario, Ore., called Lifeways Inc. The assisted-living facility in Wendell was purchased by Burpee through a separate company last year and is still in operation.

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On a separate note. Regrettably, an insurance company is allowed to accept insurance premiums every month when the company has no intention to pay on a claim. Isn't that theft? OH WAIT! That is illegal!! If the burglars had as strong a lobby as the insurance lobby has then their crimes would be just as legal!

WOW! There is a new class if swindlers for Rudy Giuliani to represent!